Wait, It Gets Better!

Since my last post was somewhat of an evil stab at my mother and her disgusting, ratty, matted, annoying smelly cats furry, fluffy, feline friends, I figured maybe I needed to go back and dedicate some words about her love for dogs. We already know that my mom is madly in love with any sort of living creature, most of them being more valued than her own flesh and blood.

No, I will not be going on and on, telling you stories about any of the following:

• The wrought iron fence is literally rotting away due to heavily-acidic dog tinkles.



• The time when cracked-out Ernie from the streets of South Dallas (yes, we have a hood rat dog) took a nice little bite right out of my dad's ass.



• How the dogs get out of the gate, wander off for hours at a time, only to be found covered in shit {literally, shit!} because they have made their way to the city water treatment plant



• If you are missing an item -- say maybe a sock, an entire lightbulb or even a Tiffany's watch -- give it a few days and it might mysteriously reappear in the back yard. How those dogs' digestive systems pass whole items through their entire body and out their caboose is way beyond me. {There is no elaboration here. Dis shiz is fo realz, yo!}



• Having a large Black Lab / Mastiff mix escape from the house and then having to chase him through the neighborhood only to find him running in someone's front door and eating their entire dinner off the kitchen counter. Can we say *mortified* ?!?!



• Being the daughter of a woman who will spend hours camped out underneath a trailer at a truck stop in Carl's Corner trying to rescue a yard-dog.



• Having to shove your 4 kids in the very back of a car on an 8-hour roadtrip home from New Orleans, just so you can sit in the backseat with a new dog you picked up at a convenience store.



• The time I got a call from my mother to bring her a drink because she was really thirsty. When asked where she was, she said she had been camped out in some field/yard/parking lot {don't really remember} for three hours trying to catch a stray dog.



• How about when at a friend's graduation party, my mom offered to remove stitches from said friend's dog. She whipped out the tools straight from her purse and got to work!



• Watching your mother ask for scraps at a party so that she may then take them home to her animals.



• Does your dog have a psychiatrist? I'm just saying that maybe it could be a possibility that my mom might have looked into {read: hired} someone to analyze the dog's feelings.



• Due to said canine psychiatrist's reports, Marley is suffering from severe depression caused by not knowing his place in the pack. Therefore, when boarded for any length of time, he {and only he} is rewarded with a king 2-room suite with a bed, tv and attached private dog run.



• Or any other possible scenario out of the list of millions you can think of...

No, I will not be discussing any of those with you here today. Instead, I would just like to reveal my mom's true love, her passion, dedication, unconditional appreciation for dogs.

My mom loses her keys. A lot! When this happens, {and she will deny this till the day her ashes are sprinkled in the Guadalupe River - sorry floaters - it's her ultimate resting place} her nice, calm and collected spirit turns into that of a raging psycho.

Shit! Fuck! Dammit! Sonofa... Mutherfa!Crap!ThisIsBullshit! Miiiiike.......

Anyone who has ever witnessed my mother lose her keys, you should be holding your special place right now for fear of wetting your panties {or manties}, because you know how soooo damn funny it is to watch. However, you want to definitely be watching from afar, because trust me -- NOBODY wants to be caught up in her wrath.

Anyway, so my mom loses her keys. A lot. While at a restaurant one day, I was digging through my mom's purse for some chapstick and during my search, I see a small brown piece of yarn sticking up out of the dark depths of hell {her purse} and I slowly retrieve this magnificent find.

My jaw dropped.

My eyes started watering.

I couldn't breathe.

Mom, WhatTheHell is this shit?!?!

{Crickets!}

Oh, that's my new keychain. My friend-at-work's husband made it for me, so I'd never ever lose my keys again. It's so easy to find them, I.Love.It!

So folks, let me now introduce to her keychain.



I don't know if I've ever told y'all about my mom. She really likes dogs!

Feline Fiasco

My mom has cats. Three cats. It has been rumored that they aren't liked all that well in the Stanga household. I really don't even think my mom likes them all that much, but what's she gonna do?!?!

So remember how we have the 17 year old cat on a daily dialysis treatment? You know, Maxie, the one my mom sticks an IV into every.single.day and pumps him full of fluids?

****

Well, let's take a break from talking about Maxie and dedicate some much-needed attention to Grey Kitty. Yes, that is his name. Grey Kitty.

Rewind a few years, say circa 2005 or so:

During some x-ray for one reason or another, {or 500 reasons because they are, in fact, my mom's animals. And her pets seem to have every possible problem in the world...} the doctor realized there was a bullet next to the cat's heart.

You read correctly.

A bullet.

In the cat.

Piercing his heart.

How the crap did the cat get a bullet in his heart?

Well, turns out, our neighbor was bragging one day about how he thought he had finally gotten rid of the armadillo that has been lurking in the neighborhood gardens. When we inquired how he managed to do that, he responded:

"It was early one morning, barely light out and I saw the gray shadow moving in the bushes. I ran inside, got my gun and shot it."

Small, insy, teeny, tiny mistake.

He didn't exactly shoot the armadillo.

He shot our cat.

With a gun.

In the heart.

And did the cat die?

No...... {dammit} Thank God!

We still have armadillos.


Fast forward a couple of years to late 2007 or early 2008:

Grey Kitty was sprawled out, catching some rays in the driveway. Daddy was in a hurry to leave the house. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened.

Dad + Car + Cat + Driveway =MEEOOOOOWWWWWWCHHHHHHH!!!!!

He ran over the cat.

The cat with a bullet in his heart.

Ran over it with his car.

And do you think the cat died?

Noooooooo..... Dammit! Thank God!


Fast forward again to July 2009:

Grey Kitty has a problem with his front paw and is limping. Mom takes him in to the vet to check it out, where they send him in for an x-ray. Which then leads to removing a lump out of his paw and sending it in for a biopsy.

Cancer. The cat has cancer.

And do you want to know how exactly the cat got cancer?

Because my dad ran over it with the car. Yes, if you run over a cat with a car -- and the cat doesn't die -- it will then instead develop cancer. Who knew? I didn't know that! Did you?

Somehow, the pressure from the tire caused a cyst to develop in the cat's paw, which turned malignant and is now spreading up his leg and eventually to his body.

Has this killed the cat?

Noooooo.......

Don't you think that after years full of trauma and bad luck, the cat would be much better off going peacefully to live with the feline Father?

Don't worry, we'll never cease to amaze you. My mom cannot bring herself to put the cat down, because he's only 12 years old and has so much more life to live. {With cancer, and a bullet in his heart.}

Today, the cat is at the vet.

Getting his leg amputated!

We will now be the newest family of the 3-legged cat.

We will also now be renaming the cat to Lucky! The 3-legged, bullet catching cat.

I joke a lot about the ridiculous stories that have come from our pets, and think this too is a bit overboard, however my mom is really upset by this, so I do hope it all goes as smoothly as possible. For her sake. So please send a little prayer up to the Good Lord for a quick recovery and emotional strength for my mom.

****

Did I just bring down the mood? Wait, I can bring it back up!

Let's talk about the third cat. Black Kitty. What a bitch she is!!! But we know why she's so moody and I think I would be too.

Several years back, we were watching the cats play with the ornaments on the Christmas tree. They were having a grand 'ole time, pawing and climbing and everything else those creatures do. It was precious...

...until Black Kitty decided to take a bite into the string of lights.

The tree darkened.

There were sparks.

The cat fell out of the tree with her fur standing straight up, foam dripping from her mouth.

The stupid cat electrocuted herself.

And did that kill the cat?

Nooooooo..... {Dammit!} Thank God!

The next winter season, the cat went missing. For about four days or so. Mom was really worried about her, fearing she may have become a snack for the coyotes.

It was a rare season with tons of cold rain. Ice and sleet. Snow even.

Half a week later, in below-freezing temperatures, we found the cat.

Stuck in a tree.

Alive.

Did the lack of food, water paired with being completely frozen and unable to move kill the cat?

Nooooooo......Dammit! Thank God!


If you have never once believed that cats really do have more chances at life than any other living creature, come to our house!

We cannot seem to get rid of these damn cats!!!

Any suggestions?

Martini Tour 2009 - Friday

As mid-summer was approaching, Daddy and I were gearing up for our big trip to NOLA to visit with Molly and partake in the latest Martini Tour group event.

We hopped in the car mid-afternoon on Thursday and embarked on a 7+ hour journey through the piney woods of east Texas and downward through the cedar stump swamplands of southern Louisiana. This road trip proved to be plenty entertaining as we tuned into KBON 101.1 out of Eunice. To a person that isn’t familiar with the dialect and thought process of the swamp inhabitants, words cannot even describe how incredibly humorous this radio show is!

With a late-evening arrival, daddy and I headed straight to Molly’s house to chat for a bit before calling it a night. Lawd knows we needed plenty of rest for what we were about to endure in the following days. Oh, I almost forgot… Jacques-Imo took the trip with us and I finally got to introduce him to his Auntie Molly and cousin Boudreaux.

Friday morning came pretty early and we were all up-n-at-em. Molly had to leave for work pretty early and dad and I both had plenty of work to do for the majority of Friday. While we were on conference calls, checking emails and messages, searching our computers for appropriate documents, and all other forms of work, the dogs were left to play. Let’s just say it was somewhat hard to concentrate with daddy doing business over the phone and listening to the over-sized, bug-eyed, snotty-faced, snorting monster Boudreaux trying to eat Jacques in the background. Luckily, I did manage to get a significant amount of work done.

Once we completed our tasks for the day, we headed out to meet up with my parrain, Billy Boy Bratton for a delicious lunch at a hole-in-the-wall po-boy shop, Crabby Jack’s. As soon as you enter the door to this disgusting building that clearly hasn’t passed a health code inspection since it’s been opened, your mouth is instantly watering. You are greeted with a wall of nothing but a variety of hot sauces and you immediately feel a warm fuzzy feeling in your heart {that will soon move to your stomach and then so on….}

Dad and I decided to split a regular sized po-boy, which was way more than either of us needed, plus a cup of gumbo. Talk about D.E. Licious! We went for the infamous shrimp remolaude and fried green tomato po-boy and I was getting full eating the shrimp that fell off my sandwich before I could even get to the actual meal. We thought we had lost Uncle Bill for awhile, but we found him. He was just buried underneath a heaping pile of fried shrimp & oysters. YUMMY!!!

{Hi, this is Lane. Can you please send a janitor to office 256 to clean up the drool that has just engulfed my desk. Pronto! Okay, thanks! }

Following lunch was a nap was a mingling with the locals as we boarded the ferry to ride over to Algiers Point. History lesson: New Orleans is also referred to as the Crescent City. The reason being is the Mississippi River curves at a certain point, forming a crescent around the south side of the city.

{I see you scrolling your mouse over to the X button now… Don’t you dare deny me this lesson!}

Anyway, the turning point of the river is called Algiers Point, which forms a nice little community on the other side of the river. After working so hard at consuming and digesting such a fabulous meal, we were in definite need of a refreshment. We stopped at the Dry Dock Bar for a beer, then a cocktail.

Moving on… we drove through the streets and admired some incredibly precious houses for sale before heading over to the actual point to get a glimpse of the Quarter and Jackson Square from across the river. Turns out it was pouring outside so the view wasn’t clear. With disappointment in our hearts, we stumbled across The Old Point Bar, one of the original old dives in some shady-looking building. The weather forced us into the bar and grab another drink. Dammit! What a cool venue it was. Here is where we discussed my wedding {I hear y’all snickering out there} and the fact that dad would be more then willing to pay for a wedding that included a bar crawl through Nola. Hey – I’m down for that!

Exiting the bar, the sun was as bright as could be with rays beating down on my naked eyes and fair skin. We tried the Algiers Point view again and Success! I saw this:

I see you’re not really impressed with A) my photography and/or B) my subject. But when you cross back over the river and get close, you see this. Isn’t she a beaut?

Finally, we called it an afternoon and headed back to Uptown for a quick change and to pick up the sister. Our plan for the night was to head back down to the Quarter to meet up with Newfield and JP {his first NOLA trip since turning 21 a month ago! Wahoo!} at Muriel’s. However, while parking, we were sidetracked when we spotted this bad boy.

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It is without a doubt we had to stop for a few photo ops. I’m pretty sure I’d like to get this sweet paint job done on the Cerv.

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Finally, we sat down to eat {again!} and ended with a Pimm’s Cup nightcap at The Napoleon House. Please note: I said PIMM’S CUP…not PIMP’S CUP. A low-key night was definitely in order if we were going to get up extremely early on Saturday for the main event of the weekend.

Blog to come…

What Better Place to Spend the 4th Than Whitehouse?!?!

If anyone can’t tell by the lack of frivolous stories on my posts, I’ve seem to have lost a huge part of my entertainment value:  Kacy.

She moved back to her hometown, Whitehouse, a few months ago and since then, my level of fun seems to have plummeted to the ground. 

I decided to hop in the car, with Jacques-Imo in tow, and head to celebrate the holiday with the Mills Clan.

Some might think that this sort of reunion would produce a plethora of crazy stories, but that couldn’t be any further from the truth.  And, I couldn’t be more happy about it. 

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I can honestly say that this was one of the best weekend getaways ever!  I didn’t have to do anything at all.  There was no schedule, no agenda, no time restrictions -- nothing.  We just lounged around outside all day for the majority of the weekend.  

There was gee-tar pickin…

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… and singin’ …

… dogs for days!

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Chris & Kacy engaged in a Cannonball & Jack-knife competition …

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… but wouldn’t have had the graceful technique if it weren’t for Coach Raymond… 

{He would have participated if only Tory would have let him get in the water without his ear plugs.  What is he, like five?}

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What a perfect spot to just lounge around all day! And yes, I am the biggest nerd around for reading in the pool.  Shut up!

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Although I did take a few dips in the refreshing water, I did settle into my spot for the weekend.  For three days, I enjoyed this view:

{No comment necessary on the toes. Ok, Thanks!)

Of course, this wasn’t completely a voluntary position – the sun is what kept me in hiding.  But the dogs seemed to find it cozy …

And the food?!?!  How could I not have talked about the food yet?  Let’s just say we ate well ALL.WEEKEND.LONG.    Top it off with a beyond-spectacular fireworks show only about 30 yards in front of us!!!

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Finally, with a girls trip to see The Proposal ending the weekend, I must say this trip scored a big fat ten!!! 

Thank you again, Mills family.  Can’t wait to do it again!